Great Show

Truth be told, if you've seen a Jeff Dunham DVD, his shows are just like it. Of course, the DVDs are recorded from shows, so that's to be expected. Our seats were really too far away in the 10,000-seat arena to see much other than watching on the big screen behind him. One of my coworkers kindly told me, "this is just not supposed to be a learning experience!" I suppose what I learned at my first live ventriloquist performance was some tricks of showmanship.

But, he brought out our favorite friends. Walter said they did a good job decorating the gym, which is the literal truth for this arena.


Achmed sang Jingle Bombs from the newest DVD (which I still need to purchase, but I have seen it). It's a little odd. I heard about Achmed from Turtle before I saw Spark of Insanity, and I wasn't sure I would like him. Jeff has a great talent for being funny without being offensive (in my opinion). And, if he is offensive, he tends to exclude no one. Well, except for the tree-hugging pagans. It's only a matter of time, I think....


José Jalapeño (on a Stick) was having some lockjaw issues (stick malfunction?), but Jeff worked it out behind the lid of the case. It wouldn't be a Jeff Dunham show without him and Peanut. I need a Peanut doll. They are so hard to find! Every now and then, I'll check eBay. Peanut runs a good $200 or so. I wonder if Jeff would be upset with me if I made a Peanut amigurumi. Hmm... I think I challenged myself....


When we all thought it was done, Jeff came back with Bubba J. He confessed that it had been some time since they worked together and needed to read from some "notes." But, that didn't matter, because the audience knew that part of the act, and were helping Bubba J with his punchlines (even though Bubba J said he knew his lines). That was actually amazingly funny, and Jeff was a great sport about it.


My last picture is . . . my ticket! I had a little practice puppet with me; one of my friends did not know I was studying ventriloquism. I'm no where near performance capacity, but I know I will complete my lessons this year. And, hopefully, I will finish building my first puppet too. When Phoenix's boyfriend visited us in October, he brought me a monkey puppet. I haven't found her voice yet but I'm working on it. The contingency was that I need to not scare his little daughter with it, who was terrified of the gray fuzzy thing. I'm working on that, too!


It was a great night. The show ran longer than both Phoenix and I expected it to, but I think that's great. I can't say the show wasn't worth the price I paid for it. I do hope I'll get a chance to see him again. Oh, and to whatever company owns the rights to Lamb Chop's Play Along: how about some DVDs, please?? We have so little opportunity to watch great ventriloquists in action.